George said a lot of people at the NSA were “really bothered” when Obama requested a smartphone in 2008.

“Nobody wanted to put anything out there that wasn’t completely secure,” he said.

George wrote and engineered diagrams for the phone, the outlet reported. After several months of work, which included experts at the NSA stripping the phone of any potential sources of threat — such as mobile games like “Angry Birds” — the president had a BlackBerry that at the time had just 10 contacts who Obama could reach directly.

The NSA — which chose the BlackBerry model — won’t confirm whether Obama can text or write an email on the phone, but George told the outlet that Obama just wanted a phone that allowed him to keep in touch with his advisers.